National champions Lee Emanuel (Sheffield/Hastings) and Charlie Grice (Brighton Phoenix) have been confirmed as members of the Great Britain Squad for the European Indoor championships in Prague next month. Emanuel will race over 3,000m and Grice 1,500m which are the events at which they won their National titles a couple of weeks back.

The County Sportshall team had their best overall results for several years at the South East Regional Sportshall Finals at Burgess Hill on Sunday. Both the U15 Girls and the U13 boys placed third, the latter missing silver by just one point, whilst the U15 boys and U13 girls came fourth.

Hurdler Bethany Close was the only Sussex medallist in the British Universities Indoor Championships at Sheffield over the weekend.

Racing in the 60m hurdles the Brighton & Hove hurdler, who was running for Bath University, struck bronze when clocking 8.66s after beating the eventual champion Karla Drew (Southampton) in the semi-final in 8.61s.

Running in the men’s 3.000m Sam Bennett (Lewes/Birmingham) took sixth place in 8:28.41s while Crawley high jumper Robyn Pettit, who is at Portsmouthl, cleared 1.69m to place seventh in her event.

Lee Emanuel (Sheffield/Hasting) and Charlie Grice (Phoenix) set the fastest indoor 1500 metre times by British runners this season at the Sainsbury’s Indoor Grand Prix at Birmingham on Saturday but again it was Emanuel who got the better of the head to head clash for the Sussex athletes.

In a strong international clash the British runners were never in the mix for medals as the pace was fast from the start with Kenyan and America runners battling it out at the front.

Five Sussex runners gained Top Ten places in the National Cross-country Championships over the usual muddy Parliament Hill course at Hampstead Heath on Saturday but individual medals escaped the grip of the Sussex runners.

In the Senior Men’s race Ben Tickner led his Brighton Phoenix team into ninth team spot, one of the highest ever team placing by a Sussex Club.